Links: Adventures, Education, and Eurovision 2012

Today’s post is a smattering of links that are newsworthy or worth reading.

First, worth reading is a post from Steve describing a great-looking adventure up in the Qusar-Quba region of Azerbaijan, in the north nearer the border with Russia. Steve writes about meeting an ex-government official, a recently-returned soldier, and visiting a pir (an excellent explanation of pirs here).

“Azerbaijan has a lot of professional teachers today, but they have very low wage – AZN 200.Therefore they retire and prefer tutorship at home”, Minister of Education of Azerbaijan Misir Mardanov said during the Baku education workers conference, APA reports. Mardanov underlined the selfless labor of the Azerbaijani teachers and said if they received AZN 2000, children wouldn’t need in tutors.

Last, Eurovision 2012 has seen two major developments in the last few days: Development one is that it appears that the Baku Crystal Hall has begun construction on the Baku bay. That 25,000-seat enclosed stadium will have to be completed in less than eight months, as the finals for Eurovision are scheduled for mid-May. Hope the rush on that order doesn’t compromise things like safety standards. Development two is that the government did respond to the Eurovision committee’s request that Azerbaijan’s visa regime be simplified. Unfortunately, with a flat “no”:

Samad Seyidov, the head of Azerbaijan’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), said on September 3 that “simplifying the visa regime ahead of [the] Eurovision [contest in 2012] is not under discussion.”

It looks like the Azeri government has left some wiggle room for compromise, but as of now, it looks like they are fairly firm on continuing to implement their somewhat-cumbersome visa process. Sorry, Eurovision fans and prospective tourists.

About Aaron

I Speak for Myself

Here's the scoop: This blog is mine, and it only reflects what I'm thinking and doing, not what anyone else is thinking and doing. It certainly doesn't reflect anything from the US or Azerbaijan Government, nor Peace Corps.